Be a dentist.

In a break from ward rounds, a group of the SHOs, the other two students from my school and I found ourselves talking about dentistry, and how it compares to medicine. Out of the five SHOs in the room, when asked, only three would choose to do medicine if they had their life again. At first glance, this seems like good odds as it is the majority, but I find this a tad disconcerting. From my point of view, all of these individuals are, in essence, living the dream. They got into medical school and came out the other side, they're well adjusted to and seemingly happy with a job that I aspire to work my way towards, and yet only just over half would do it again? Should I be concerned about this fact?

When my friend asked whether he should do medicine or dentistry, the response of "do dentistry" overwhelmed that of medicine, with four of the SHOs discouraging him from their own profession! Of course, the scientific side of me is having a field day, as this is by no means a reliable study, simply a random sample of the professionals that were in the room at that time, and is by nobody's standards a conclusive survey. Nevertheless, the conversation was an interesting one.

Their reasons were as follows, and though the final verdict of "I would rather not have been a doctor" was not shared by all, everyone agreed on the reasons that the dispassionate (disillusioned?) two put forward. Firstly, that there was no such thing as a nine-to-five job in medicine; one was nearly always working.  In the first couple of years, you are a "dog's body" as one SHO put it.

Another disadvantage of being a doctor is you get moved around every four to six months, although refreshing, this can lead to leaving behind a whole set of friends and maybe even living spaces, if you're moving somewhere far away, a couple of times a year!

Now, of course, medicine is a vocation and I can definitely see that, but something else that came up in the open conversation in that relaxed afternoon in the office is the number of friends' gatherings, parties, weddings and even sleep that every SHO had missed out on. One, let's call her Lucy, couldn't even confirm whether or not she could go to her best friend's wedding, as she had not been told whether she was "on-call" that evening. They stressed that although it isn't often required per se, you have to stay on some evenings simply because any doctor worth their salt can't just leave one of their patients when they are needed, for whatever reason. From my own limited experience, I can completely understand this, each day of work experience at the Marsden was scheduled for us to leave at five, but every evening we stayed on for a couple of hours longer - and we didn't have any responsibility for the patients, let alone any skills that we could utilise, we stayed only out of sheer interest in their well being.

They SHOs all agreed, however, that under no circumstances would you be bored at work as a doctor. On a fundamental level, you are using your skills and dedication in a team of people that are striving to improve as many lives as possible, and relieve human suffering, and I don't think you can ever escape that intrinsically admirable fact, and it is definitely one of the most compelling reasons I have for wanting to be a doctor.

So where to go from here? I would like to talk to some more doctors about how they find the balance in their job, and learn more so that I can evaluate whether this profession is right for me.

Personally I am not interested in dentistry, and I mean no disrespect to dentists when I relay this to you. But the response that they gave my friend who is considering it was summarised in the following choice phrase "if you want to be bored and rich, be a dentist." Make of that what you will...

Finally, I am very grateful to the honesty of those lovely SHOs if they're reading, it's not easy to admit if you regret something, but I am incredibly thankful that they were so blunt about what they really thought about being doctors. This way, if I do decide to enter into this "fresh hell", I can at least go in ready, with my eyes wide open.